The Girl Next Door

Chapter Two-1

CHAPTER TWO

The call came like a lightning bolt. How was it possible that someone so close, so always in her world was gone? She thought she’d insulated herself against that possibility when her parents disappeared with their deaths. She decided then that no one else could ever leave her. But she was wrong. Auntie Em was gone. She felt like Dorothy out of Kansas, swept on a whirlwind of emptiness, until she landed in the house, the same old house, her house now, alone. Orphaned and alone.

“She left me the house, sort of,” she explained to Mike, as she packed her car after the funeral. She was returning to school as swiftly as she could; she’d think about the house and her dead aunt later. “And tuition, of course. But she didn’t leave me anything else, not a red cent. I can’t even sell the house or what’s in it. It’s part of an estate I can’t touch until five years after I’m finished with school.”

“Your Aunt sounds like a wise woman.”

“Yeah, right. I can see her plan. She wanted me to establish myself.”

“What’s the problem with that? You’re what? A junior now?”

“Yeah, right,” she bit off sarcastically.

He looked at her puzzled.

“Let’s just say I’m not that good a student. I might…might have enough credits by the end of the year to call myself a junior in the fall. But…that’s kinda doubtful.”

“So, you have inspiration to work hard.”

“Sure, lots of that. But no cash.”

“Cash you get from working.”

“Working. Right. Where am I going to get work?”

“Try the campus employment office.”

“Sure. Maybe for next year. But I’m just weeks away from the end of the term. Like anyone’s going to hire me for three weeks.”

“I could float you a loan,” he said.

“Oh, no, no, no… I’m fine. I am. I have a little. I’ll get by.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very sure. And I gotta go now.”

“Okay. You take care.”

She smiled.

Mike observed her as she drove off. Randi had grown up some, he thought. But not enough. Another hard knock with the loss of her aunt could set her back. At the same time, the Randi Savoy he knew had an underlying spirit about her that kept trudging along in the face of adversity. He believed she would rise above the shock and figure out how to survive. After all, she did have the use of the house and money for school. How much more money could she need? When he was a college student he practically lived on air. The girl was resourceful, if nothing else. Shrugging he went back inside his house for a beer.

***

Months later…

The call came like a lightning bolt.

“Mike, you there!” The voice was shallow, hoarse and desperate, hardly recognizable. He pulled himself up in bed. It was 3:00 am.

“Please, please! You’ve got to come…” her voice trailed off, strained to a whisper.

“Randi, is that you? Come where?” He could hardly think.

“That old warehouse…south side of town, remember the torn down sign … Auto-body work… I’m hurting, please…”

Three weeks prior …

“Girl, it ain’t like your typical porn,” the pretty black girl drawled. “It’s fun, trust me and the money,” Trina’s dark eyes flashed as she rubbed her fingers together… “Mucho bucks. You need to do this.”

“Sounds worse than porn,” Randi frowned.

“You ain’t gonna get f****d…at least not all that much…”

“But slapped around?”

“Oh, slapping, a little twisted n****e, maybe a few warm-up smacks on the old behind. That’s the fun of it, sugarpie. You never know what the guys are going to do and anything you do is fine with them. They like it to look spontaneous, they like their girls like the girl next door. And Randi Savoy, you are the girl next door! They’ll probably pay you ten times what they paid me.”

“Yeah, and what if somebody sees the video?”

“So what if somebody sees it? That’s the point.”

“God, it gives me chills.” Her entire body shook.

“’O course it gives you chills, that’s cause it’s a big old nasty turn on.. Any girl who practically gets off when her hunky next door neighbor spanks her butt will be creaming her panties over this. In fact, I bet you even go for seconds. Darling, you’re getting paid!” She shook her head. Trina had the prettiest tawny skin and smoky eyes and no inhibitions that Randi could remember. They became fast friends when they worked together at Dairy Mart two summers before. Trina could get her into scrapes and, best of all, right back out of them, soon as she turned on her Southern black girl charm. But this? Acting in porn flicks was just about the sleaziest thing she could think of. But more than that, it was dangerous, as in really dangerous.

Randi took a deep breath, then stared up at her sassy friend with a grim expression.

“No, I’m not! I’m definitely not going to be some virgin slave w***e!”

Trina rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Suit yourself. But don’t you go tellin me you don’t got no money, girl. You’ll earn every penny with these guys, trust me. You’ll have enough cash to keep you happy until school starts and then some.” She swayed her sassy ass to the far side of the room and plucked a cigarette from the pack with a long purple fingernail. Then she stood, hip stuck out, her lips pursed.

Randi seemed to melt under her disapproving glare.

“What did you say they pay?”

Trina’s eyes lit. “At least 500 bucks. I wouldn’t accept nothing less. And you’ll only be working one day, a few measly hours. Short of selling yourself on the street, there’s nowhere you can go and get that kind of pay. Ya wanna go back to Dairy Mart?”

“So, you’re gonna be there, right?”

She shrugged, “Hell, I suppose I could be. But you don’t need me. You’re one of the ass-kinkin’est bitches I know.”

“I am?”

“In your own circle of friends you are. Just keep your head about you and you’ll do jus’ fine. The guys are really p*****s, trust me. They just want to make a movie. They get too rough, you tell them to back off. They will. You remind them that you’re Trina’s friend, they’ll behave.”

She had no idea what that comment meant, but she learned a long time ago to let Trina’s shtick slide. Ask no questions. The girl traveled places she wouldn’t dare go.

But a porno flick? Salvation from starvation was knocking at her door. Why shouldn’t she just take off and run with it? Because it was a damn fool idea! What was this sudden caution? Yes, she actually had a conscience. Some holdover from the days under Aunt Emma’s reign, maybe, when she still cared how she behaved. Seems she had Mike Rushton riding shotgun in those last months, there to stop her when she went too far. This was definitely too far now and there’d be no Mike Rushton rushing in with his spanking hand and his leather belt ready to bring her up short. Fact was, she’d hardly even seen her neighbor since she’d handed him the spare key to her Aunt’s house when she took off for school two years before, after the funeral was over.

She was a big girl now, over twenty-one at last. Why not do Trina’s porno shoot? Then she could forget about earning money at the Dairy Mart or Burger Boy.

***

Randi knew the rundown neighborhood only because she’d passed it on her way to the lake when she was in high school. She hadn’t been anywhere near that broken down area of town in at least two years. Still, she knew the warehouse Trina described. The cement block building had been empty for years, at least until these enterprising fellows purchased it for a cheap place to produce their videos. No one would have ever known that now. The same tattered auto repair sign that had been there since the building was vacated still dangled against the front. It was surprising that a good wind hadn’t snapped it off by now. Vines covered about half of the pink brick walls, as the adjacent woods crept in through the chain link fence, as though they were sneaking in to steal it away. Looking deserted and a little spooky, no one would have ever guessed what went on inside.

Randi parked her car a few yards from the entrance and climbed out. Already she felt a tingle of excitement as she approached the plain, grey metal door. She pressed her hands against her little black skirt and tugged it down in the back. The red patent platform heels lifted her petite body to nearly five feet seven, making her feel bold though a little silly, maybe like an awkward sixteen-year-old trying to look much older than she was.

She hesitated briefly, then gave the door a firm knock and waited.

When the door suddenly swung open on its creaky hinges, she peered in, seeing nothing but a mysterious black space beyond, as if to move inside she’d fall right off the planet. Then a man in jeans and a tan sport shirt appeared. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, his skin ruddy, his arms darkly tanned, and his beard and mustache were a salt and pepper grey. He might have been handsome once, in fact, he still emanated a surprising capacity to engage her, even lure her inside the dark building with the promise of nothing but his smarmy smile and his welcoming arm. When he first put his arm around her, she bristled. She looked around nervously clutching her purse, having the greatest urge to shake him off, but she didn’t dare.

“You must be Honey?” he said as he led her inside.

She looked at him startled, then remembered that Trina was going to call her Honey. “No one goes by their real names.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said.

Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the gloomy interior of the old warehouse, though there was nothing much to see.

The man reached in, gently directing her face back to him. “Look at me, Honey,” he said. “I’m Joey.” She blushed a little and bowed her head, feeling strangely unnerved. “Oh my, you are a pretty girl. Trina said you would be.”

Joey’s surrounding arm felt warm and comforting as he guided her deeper inside the building. When he finally stopped, he turned toward her, his arms still around her middle, and gently stroked her face. She could see the gears working in his brain as if he were assessing her value, deciding what to do next. He nodded, looking pleased. “You’re going to make a movie for us, Honey. Isn’t that right? You don’t mind me calling you Honey? We all know it’s not your real name, but you look kinda like a Honey, don’t you? Your friend Trina thought so.” He raised his graying brows.

“Yes, maybe… fine. Call me Honey. I like that,” Randi replied.

“Well then, Honey, you just follow my lead. We have no scripts here, no words to memorize. This is going to be the easiest money you ever made. You just react like Honey would naturally react and you’ll do just fine. You got that?”

“Yes, I got that.”

“There are cameras out there taking it all in, but you don’t need to worry about them, you just be yourself. Stick with me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They moved from the bleak shadows to where a small set had been arranged to look like a hotel room, complete with a king-sized bed, a sofa, nightstand and a red leatherette easy chair. Stepping to the center of the makeshift space, a bank of lights suddenly flashed on and Randi could see that there were others in the room, at least two bodies shifting in the darkness beyond the blinding floods.

Joey was right behind her, close enough that she caught a whiff of his cologne. Then they stood facing, angled toward the camera, his one hand on her shoulder, his other holding her face, examining her eyes and mouth and her bewildered wide-eyed expression. As his eyes moved downward, the effect became unsettling. She felt a little drunk without having had a drink, then the realization dawned on her dazed mind that deep in her gut a s****l warmth had spread and was growing aggressively now. His utter command of her held her enthralled; the visual inspection seemed as intimate as a first kiss. But she hoped to God that he wouldn’t kiss her. As much as he claimed her attention and she could not break from his overwhelming power, there was something cloyingly vulgar about his manner. She was as repelled as much as she was attracted and a sudden surge of nausea rose up in her belly.

“You’re going to perform for me, Honey,” he half whispered, half spoke. Then he slapped her face lightly and then again, then back and forth, jarring her senses loose. He worked his way down her body, cupping her breasts in his hands and then squeezing them roughly. Though they were still covered by her thin t-shirt, she felt a shock to her body, the pain sensuous and stirring.